A new wearable device indicating vaccination status is being rolled out in California.
Thousands of units of the wristband, called the ImmunaBand, have already been sold in San Diego the since it was introduced a few weeks ago.
“If we had something where you can say, ‘Hey, I support the vaccine effort, I’ve been vaccinated, I’m safe to be around,’ then that would help us as we start to open back up,” said Dr. Toshof Bernton, inventor of the Immunaband.
From FOX 5:
His bracelet, the Immunaband, runs about $20 and stores vaccine records on it so people don’t have to haul around their vaccine cards. Once purchased, the customer sends in a copy of their vaccine card and the company loads the record to its encrypted website. The bracelet then comes in the mail with a QR code on it. If someone wants to verify the wearer’s vaccine records, they pull out their cell phone, snap a picture of the QR code and see the record.
“Lets say somebody stole it,” Dr. Bernton said. “They can get to the website, but unless they know your pin, they can’t get to your card.”
“Guests can now enter with proof of a negative antigen COVID-19 test or full vaccination,” he added.
One San Diego resident wasn’t supportive of the vaccine ID intitiative.
“It’s a little too much,” she told FOX 5 on Wednesday. “Sometimes you go to a restaurant and you don’t even know the waiter’s name. I don’t need to know their medical history like that.”
This comes as the debate over vaccine passports in America heats up, with several red states like Florida, Utah, and Texas already banning the use of vaccine passports while blue states like New York and California consider how best to implement them.